Wednesday, April 17, 2013

The right of the people to be secure in
their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches
and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon
probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing
the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. U.S.
Const. Amend. IV.
This term, the Supreme Court decided whether (1) deploying a drug-detecting dog
at the front door of a house qualifies as a Fourth Amendment search (Florida
v. Jardines); (2) the positive reaction of a trained, drug-detecting
dog constitutes probable cause per se (Florida v. Harris); and (3)
the rationale which permits the warrantless, suspicionless detention of
individuals found in a place covered by a search warrant also permits the
warrantless, suspicionless off-site apprehension and return of individuals
who have recently left a place covered by a search warrant (Bailey v.
United States).

The Supreme Court has said in the past that walking a drug-detecting dog around
a car pulled over on the highway or around luggage in an airport is not a
Fourth Amendment search. The Court in Jardines noted that those
cases were decided under the “expectation of privacy” rationale. Under the
alternative “property intrusion” rationale, a Fourth Amendment search occurred
when police used a trained dog to test for the smell of marijuana on Jardines’s
porch.

Probable cause exists when there is a fair probability that contraband or
evidence of a crime will be found in the place to be searched. The Supreme
Court has held that informers’ tips, used to establish probable cause,
need not be subjected to uniform, rigid reliability standards. The Florida Supreme
Court in Harris held that the prosecution had not established the
existence of probable cause because it had failed to satisfy
court-mandated standards for the reliability of drugdetecting dogs and
their handlers. The U.S. Supreme Court declared in Harris that the
Florida court was in error for failure to apply the traditional common
sense, totality-of-the-circumstances standard.

In order to minimize the risk of harm to the officers, the destruction of
evidence, or the flight of suspects, officers executing a search warrant
for contraband may detain individuals found on the premises to be
searched. They may do so though they have no probable cause to arrest the individuals.
The Supreme Court in Bailey held that this exception to the Fourth Amendment’s usual
requirements does not permit officers to allow individuals to leave the
premises to be searched before apprehending them off-site and returning
them to the place being searched.

Date of Report: April 3, 2013
Number of Pages: 16Order Number: R42697Price: $29.95

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